أثر انخفاض سعر الصرف على الميزان التجاري الزراعي المصري مع الدول العربية

Abstract EN

Devaluation of currency is one of the important issue that whole the world concern whether developing or devolved countries.

This concept has important implications for various economic variables, most notably the impact on the trade balance of any country.

Because the policy of devaluation of the local currency of any of the most prevalent policies used by many developing and developed countries because of its positive effects, but many studies have got negative effects for the devaluation, so this study aimed to identify those effects and aimed to study the impact of the devaluation of the Egyptian pound on the balance of Egyptian agricultural trade with the Arab countries during the period 1995-2015.

The study concluded that: • There is a surplus of the total trade balance with the Arab countries during the first two years of the period of study.

The value of exports to Arab countries was greater than the value of imports from Arab countries.

The total exports of Arab countries in 1995 and 1996 amounted to 498 and 528 million dollars respectively, While imports reached about 450 and 510 million dollars in 1995 and 1996, respectively, then the trade balance began to decline since 1997 to reach about 1191 million dollar in 2015, a significant annual decrease of 1% reached 181.5 million dollars, The coefficient deviation is about 62.3%, which indicates that there are large fluctuations in the total value of the Egyptian Trade balance with the Arab countries in current values during the period of study.

• There was a permanent deficit in the agricultural trade balance with the Arab countries during the study period, which increased from 177 million dollars in 1995 to 1131.5 in 2015, with significant annual decrease of 1% reached 62.76 million dollars.

The coefficient of variation was about 67.3% indicating that there are large fluctuations in the total value of the Egyptian trade balance with the Arab countries in current values during the period of study By estimating the relationship between the exchange rate and the agricultural trade balance and GDP, the results of the Unit Root test for the variables studied during the study period, it was found that the time series values for all the variables studied are not stable at their level.

The absolute values calculated for the ADF test are less than the critical values at 5%.

Therefore, thus, the time series of the variables of the study are not static at the level but are still at the first differences, that means they are integrated first class I (1) during the period of study.

• The results of the Cointegration test using the Johansen test to study the variables after taking the first differences found that there is a common integration between all the variables studied.

Which means that these variables cannot be separated from each other in the long term? The results of Granger causality test between the agricultural trade balance with the Arab countries and the real exchange rate and GDP, were as follows: • Unidirectional causality, which extends from the Egyptian GDP to the real agricultural trade balance (ATBarb).

Therefore, Null hypothesis that the agricultural trade balance with the Arab countries is not affected by economic growth can be rejected and accept the hypothesis that economic growth or GDP affects in the balance of agricultural trade with the Arab countries during the study period.

• There is no causal relationship between Arab countries' gross domestic product and Egypt's agricultural trade balance with Arab countries, i.e., economic growth or GDP of Arab countries does not affect Egypt's agricultural trade balance with Arab countries.

• There is a unidirectional causal relationship that extends from the real exchange rate to the Egyptian agricultural trade balance with the Arab countries, meaning that the change in the real exchange will affect the Egyptian agricultural trade balance with the Arab countries.

• There is a bilateral causal relationship that extends from the Egyptian GDP to the GDP of the Arab countries, meaning that both variables are affected and influenced by each other.

• There is no causal link from the real exchange rate to the Egyptian GDP.

• There is a unidirectional causal relationship that extends from the real exchange rate to the GDP of the Arab countries.

In examining the extent of J-Curve in the agricultural trade between Egypt and the Arab countries, the negative correlation between the values of the exchange rate coefficient on the basis of which the presence of the J-Curve effect is determined.

This negates the existence of J-Curve in the agricultural foreign trade sector between Egypt and the Arab countries, so currency devaluation could not improve the agricultural trade balance between Egypt and the Arab countries in the long run.